Perspective-What, Where, and Why?

What is commonly understood as the term perspective is a kind of visual system that attempts to represent 3- dimensional space on flat surface. We know that perspective works due to a visual ‘illusion’, the way our eyes see objects, and the way our brains organize the space. The main application of perspective is in art. However, perspective is an optical phenomenon and thus it has its principal root not in art but in geometrical optics. Gerard Desargues (1593-1662), an architect and engineer in the branch of mathematics called ‘projective geometry’ first expanded and precisely worded the definition of perspective. He claimed that perspective ‘is an example of the geometric operation of projection and section where projection lines from the outline of an object to the eye are sectioned or cut by a picture plane. His has roots in the conic sections, where projection line from a circle to a point form a cone, which is then sectioned by a plane to give a circle, ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola, depending on the angle of the cutting plane.’ Today, the definition of perspective and its rules have been described by a number of scholars, artists, and architects. For example, Christopher W. Tyler, who spent the last three years in US exploring the processes of the human vision, attempted to distill the rules of perspective into a form that may be easily applied to practice. He identified eight major and basic rules of perspective the first three of which and mostly frequently mentioned, for example, in art books, listed below: 0. There is only one geometry of perspective projection onto a fixed picture plane. 1. All straight lines in space project to straight lines (or points, if end on) in the picture plane. 2. The projections of all lines that are parallel in space either remain parallel in the picture plane or intersect at a single vanishing point. The debate over the definition of perspective, interaction between theory and practice, and its symbiotic dependence on the tools of vision, both monoscopic and stereoscopic, has engaged artists, philosophers, and scientists into a continuing dialogue over the centuries. For example, with the invention of stereo camera, it was understood that one of the perceptual qualities of perspective drawings that can be used by both the artist and the photographer is ‘displacement of view point.’ Now, it seems to us rather obvious when art historians, for example, White, claim that perspective ‘enables artist to recreate reality in a way that convinces the eye well as mind’ . However, perspective is a phenomenon that human vision always unconsciously acknowledged in the world and yet it is phenomenon that human hand did not succeed in expressing on paper until Renaissance. Of course, basic ideas of perspective had been accumulating for centuries. Euclid in 300 B.C. wrote the first text on geometrical optics, ‘Optica’, in which he defined the terms visual ray and visual cone. In about 25 B.C. Vitruvius’ ‘Ten Books on Architecture’ appeared and today it is the only book to have survived from antiquity. This book had a profound impact on Renaissance architecture and thinking. Ptolemy’s ‘Optica’, c. 140 A.D., was another text on geometrical optics that included theories of refraction and defined centric ray as the ‘ray that does not get refracted.’ Later, in his ‘Geographia’, in order to produce map, Ptolemy applied the principles of geometric optics to the projection of the spherical surface of the earth onto a flat surface. The first linear perspective construction is attributed to Ptolemy when he was drawing the map of the world. It is believed, that Ptolemy knew about the perspective but applied it only to maps and to stage design. In Galen’s ‘De Usu Partium’, c. 175 A.D. there can be found early and erroneous description of how the eye creates images. Alhaze’s ‘Perspectiva’, c. 1000 A.D. was Islam’s contribution into the study of perspective. It integrated the works of Euclid, Ptolemy, and Galen. Roger Bacon believed that geometric laws of optics reflected God’s manner of spreading his grace in the universe. This conviction is reflected in Bacon’s work ‘Opus Majus’,c. 1260 A.D. in a section on optics. John Pecham’s ‘Perspectiva Communis’, c. 1270 A.D., was a treatise on optics widely popular in Renaissance along with Blasius of Parma’s ‘Quaestiones Perspectivae’, c. 1390 A.D. that was a popular adaptation of the works of Bacon and Pecham. It is fair to pose a question of why perspective became so important and developed so rapidly in Renaissance. Among a great number of reasons, one could name a few, both intellectual and practical those appear to be the most prominent. First, in 13th century Italy, the antiquity was rediscovered after a dormant period of middle ages. Italy awakened with new idea, reinventing the fine arts and literature at the same time. Thus, so called Gothic order made way to Classical order. Second, the spiritual impulse made way for humanist reasoning: human beings could be the center of te world if they admitted that they carried God within. It was a new world in which man no longer submerged himself in the glory of God. God himself became flesh through works of Giotto, Masaccio, Michelangelo, Memling, and many others. It was discovered that perspective could provide narrative focus since the eye invariably travels to the vanishing point of a picture. Thus, artists did not hesitate to put something important at or near that point, most of the time it would be trinity-central mystery of Christianity, God, or Madonna. It is believed the rise of banking and commerce in 13th century Florence was another element to set stage for the development of perspective. Knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, and figuring of proportions became widespread since it facilitated measuring of volumes of wine casks and piles of grain for merchants. It is probable that tidy mathematical ledgers of the Florentine merchants made them more receptive to the mathematical organization of space afforded by linear perspective. This commercial aspect might not have contributed to the development of perspective, but it did provide a more amenable climate. Another curious element of everyday life of Italy that is said to have contributed to the development of perspective was the current interest in mirrors. Apparently, the flat, lead-backed mirror introduced in the 13th century fascinated both artists and scientists with particular interest in optics. Use of mirrors generated interest among artists in geometrical optics and granted them a way to see a real scene o a flat plane. When seen in a real scene, the convergence of parallel lines to a vanishing point is easily ignored since it is so familiar. However, when observed on the alien flat surface of a mirror, this convergence strikes the eye. Filippo Di Ser Brunelleschi (1377-1446), sculptor, architect, and artisan-engineer, is famous for the invention of linear perspective that he discovered through his famous experiment of the ‘peepshow’ with the use of the mirror observing the Bapistry, San Giovanni. Brunelleschi held up a picture of the Baptistery painted on a panel, its back towards him, and squinted through a small hole in the painting. Through the hole he saw a mirror, which reflected the painting itself so he saw the front of the painting in the mirror. Then he took away the mirror so he could see the real Baptistery through the peephole and then the amazement of how similar they were occurred. And so on many a times. The earliest surviving application of linear perspective to art is attributed to Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi (1386-1466) called Donatello, now considered the greatest sculptor of the Early Renaissance of Italy. Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1474), described as ‘humanist scholar, natural scientist, mathematician, cryptographer, pioneer of the Italian vernacular, author’ in the Encyclopedia of the Italian Renaissance, was the first to put the theory of perspective into writing in his treatise on painting, ‘Della Pittura’ (1435). In this treatise, Alberti gave practical information for painters on how to paint history paintings. Alberti is also said to have invented the camera obscura that, like any other camera, makes perspective pictures. Another great discovery of Alberti was velo or thin veil through which the artist could get a correct view observing the scene. The idea behind it is that one can get a correct image of an object through such veil by tracing the outline of the object of the window glass. Albrech Durer greatly used this method and invented several such machines. It is said that the perspective is dead now in the world of art. The impressionists were among the first groups of artists to break away from the dictates of perspective. They claimed that the space on the canvas was illusory, thus they strove to express the inner rather than outer reality. Cezanne and later the cubists rebelled against the notion of canvas being the ‘window’ and the awareness of the gap between reality and illusion became more acute. Further on, futurists, constructivists, Dadaists, minimalists destroyed completely the ‘window’ of the painting and made it flat standing for the notion of integrity of the picture plane. I personally believe that, despite the newly emerged philosophies of art, the study of perspective remains critical to those engaged into architectural, design, and still art studies. Interestingly, Harold A. Layer found a way to bridge this gap between traditionalists and believers in perspective in art and modern rebels. Layer believes that only stereography and holography can solve philosophical and aesthetic issues that have been raised over the last century. Layer dedicated his work titled ‘Stereoscopy: Where Did It Come From? Where Will It Lead?’ to the stereo camera and it immense possibilities. He writes, ‘in terms of the expression of space, the binocular image is a logical next step in the evolution of art and photography. Thee stereo camera and the holographic laser will be essential tools that the artistlphotogrpaher must use if he or she is to nourish or lead future domains of science, ideas, and feeling.’ Sources Used: 1. http://www.jstor.org 2. Brunelleschi’s Peepshow & The Origins of Perspective’, http://www.darthmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit1/unit11.html. 3. Layer, H. A., ‘Stereoscopy: Where Did It Come From? Where Will It Lead?’, www.online.sfsu.edu 4. Tyler, C. W., ‘The Rules of Perspective’, http://www.ski.org 5. Plazy, G., The History of Art in Pictures, Barnes&Nobles, New York: 1999 6. Baxandall, M., Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, Oxford University Press, Oxford New York: 1988